ALFRED TOMATIS | appcoaching

Professor Alfred Tomatis (1920-2001)

Alfred Tomatis was a famous French Doctor, ENT Specialist, Lecturer, Scientist and Inventor.

He was the son of a famous opera singer, Humbert Dante Tomatis, who was a lyric bass at the Paris Opera. Alfred Tomatis spent a large part of his childhood on tour with his father and at the age of 11, his parents decided to send him to school in Paris. Once he had completed his secondary education, he then went on to study medicine at university.

In 1945 he became a Doctor of Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine in Paris, and an ENT specialist. Many of his patients were opera singers with voice problems and occupationally induced hearing loss, who were sent to him by his father.

At the end of the war, he was appointed Medical Consultant to the Acoustics laboratory of the Aeronautical Arsenals where he was responsible for examining the employees whose hearing was impaired by exposure to the noise of jet engines. He noted that there were distortions in the voices of the employees suffering with hearing loss and he found that there were similarities between these cases and those of the opera singers with voice impairments who consulted him.

In 1947, he began research in the fields of audiology and phonology, it was the starting point of a long series of clinical observations which led Professor Alfred Tomatis to redefine the functioning of the ear.

His findings led to the formulation of three laws which constitute the body of a "discipline" called "Audio-Psycho-Phonology", they were the subject of communications in 1957 and 1960 at the Academies of Science and Medicine in Paris; these three laws define "the TOMATIS Effect" and read as follows:

1.“The voice contains only what the ear hears” or more scientifically “the larynx only emits the harmonics that the ear can hear.”

2.“If the damaged ear is given the possibility to hear correctly the compromised frequencies, these are instantly and unconsciously restored in the vocal emission".

3.“The auditive stimulation conducted for a determined period modifies, through a phenomenon known as remanence, the self-listening posture of the subject and in consequence their phonation”.

Professor Alfred Tomatis differentiated the process of listening and that of hearing. If hearing is simply the act of perceiving sound by ear, listening requires concentration for the brain to process the meaning of words and sentences, it is a voluntary and active process. According to Professor Tomatis, listening skills training is important to optimise learning, language skills, speech and voice, but also coordination, balance, movement and rhythm. Alfred Tomatis devoted his life to his research and his inventions, and in 1952, he created a device which he named "the Electronic Ear of the Tomatis Effect" capable of rehabilitating the ear through intensive auditory stimulation. His invention was presented at the Universal Exhibition in Brussels in 1958, where he was awarded the Gold Medal for Scientific Research.

Distinctions:

Chevalier de la Santé Publique (1951)
Médaille d’Or de la Recherche Scientifique Bruxelles (1958)
Grande Médaille de Vermeil de la ville de Paris (1962)
Prix Clemence Isaure (1967)
Médaille d’Or de la Société académique « Arts, Sciences et Lettres » (1968)
Commandeur du Mérite Culturel et Artistique (1970)
Médaille d’Honneur de la Société d’Encouragement aux Arts et Lettres (1992)
Membre Honoris Causa du Dorstmundt-Institut de Munich
Membre Honoris Causa de l’Université de Potchefstroom, faculté de psychologie

Bibliography in English:

The Conscious Ear: My Life of Transformation Through Listening – Alfred A Tomatis, Edited par Station Hill Press, 1992
The Ear and Language – Alfred A. Tomatis, Editor: Stoddart, 1997
The Ear and the Voice – Alfred A. Tomatis et Billie M. Thompson, Edited par Scarecrow Press
Education et dyslexie - AA Tomatis - 1978

Further reading :